I wonder if it's related to back doors RIM was forced to include, or security vulnerabilities that RIM shared with these agencies before fixing them.

I'm very interested to see where the argument for forcing manufacturers to include back doors goes once events like this are part of the public consciousness.

If the debacle between RIM, India and I think it was Saudi Arabia a year or two ago is anything to go by[1], then it's not a back door as much as giving out the private key to the servers located in a country. India and Saudi got those keys on the threat of disallowing Blackberries in their respective countries. I remember thinking at the time that surely the US would have the keys to US servers.

[1] Whenever there's doubt, there is no doubt.

My understanding is that if the phone is linked with a self-hosted Enterprise Server (BES, not hosted by RIM) then RIM don't actually have the keys to hand over.

I would have assumed that a government would have enough cash (and sense) to purchase and run its own BES software, keeping the keys out of RIMs hands.